Chapter 2 – The Secret Under The Roses

Adrian picked up the tarnished key.

Vivian’s face drained of color. “Give that back. It’s mine.”

“Nothing in this house is yours,” Adrian said softly. He stepped around the desk. “Pack your things, Vivian. If you are still in this house when I return from the greenhouse, I won’t call a taxi. I’ll call the men who handle my garbage.”

Vivian opened her mouth, but the look in Adrian’s eyes silenced her. She turned and ran from the room.

Adrian looked at me. “Get a flashlight, Sophie.”

Ten minutes later, we were standing in the humid, earth-scented air of the estate’s massive greenhouse. The moonlight filtered through the glass roof, illuminating the row of rare white roses Evie had tended to for decades.

My hands were shaking as I held the flashlight. Adrian used a heavy iron trowel to dig into the soft soil beneath the largest rosebush.

“Evie always protected me,” Adrian said, his voice tight as he dug. “When my father vanished, she was the one who stood between me and the people who wanted to tear our family apart.”

The trowel hit something hard. A metallic thud.

Adrian cleared the dirt away. It was a heavy steel lockbox.

He used the brass key that had fallen from Vivian’s sleeve. It turned with a rusted click.

Inside the box wasn’t money. It wasn’t weapons.

It was a thick ledger, and a child’s worn blue coat.

I recognized the coat immediately. “Mr. Moretti… that’s the coat the little boy was wearing in the photograph.”

Adrian opened the ledger. I held the flashlight steady. The pages were filled with Evie’s careful handwriting, documenting massive cash withdrawals from Adrian’s personal accounts. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, funneled to an offshore account over the last five years.

“Evie was stealing from you?” I asked, confused.

“No,” Adrian said, turning the page. “Look at the signature on the withdrawal slips.”

It wasn’t Evie’s signature. It was the estate manager’s. Mr. Hayes.

“Hayes has been draining my accounts,” Adrian whispered. “And Evie found out.”

Suddenly, my phone vibrated in my apron pocket. It was a call from the hospital.

I answered quickly. “Hello? Yes, this is Sophie.”

I listened for a few seconds, my blood running cold. I hung up the phone and looked at Adrian.

“Evie is awake,” I said. “The doctors said the stroke was mild. But… they found something in her toxicology report. She didn’t just have a stroke, Adrian.”

Adrian stood up, his jaw clenched. “What did they find?”

“She was poisoned.”

Before Adrian could react, a heavy shadow stepped into the doorway of the greenhouse.

“I told her to stop digging,” Mr. Hayes said, stepping into the moonlight. He was holding a suppressed handgun, pointed directly at Adrian’s chest. “But the old woman just wouldn’t listen.”

TITLE: A Bullet In The Greenhouse

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